Summer dreams of calculated fug.

So I'm finishing up the last of my major yard stuff and getting ready to stay inside and settle into my summer spot (straddling the air conditioner vents).   However I have a few stray plants that I'm just throwing in the ground and wishing well.  Best of luck come August, random plant that seemed like a good idea at the time.

One of those plants is a Black-eyed Susan.  I got it at the plant swap this Spring because it needed a home and I hate seeing an unwanted thing.   I know they are super easy to care for and are good in the clay dirt around here but...  I...

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...just don't like them.  Yellow and brown are the saddest color combo to me and their dumdum flower shape is just so "basic."  They're the basic bitches of flowers, if you will.  (I won't.)  But still, I was going to give them a home because all Gawd's creatures yadda yadda yadda. *makes jacking off hand motion*

And because I developed a judgey, ill-informed decision Gawd decided to remind me I don't know shit and showed me this on Pinterest today:

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Well, damn!  That's a stylish mix!  And not only do I like this mix of flowers but I think the Black-eyed Susan look-alikes are the glue here.  It's the perfect amount of contrast, methinks.  I love Black-eye Susans now.  The workhorses of summer gardens.  Please don't die on me now!

The moral of this story is make room for ugly in your garden/space/life.  Or maybe redefine your definition of ugly.  One of those sounds pretty important so probably you should do that.  It's called 'calculated fug' and we will all be the masters of it.  The End.

When I found the source of this delightfully, mind-changing picture it gets even better.  It's a PRE-PLANNED garden pack that you can buy from High Country Gardens.  I didn't even know you could do that!  I'm full of awe and wonder.  

This pack featured above fits a 5' x 5' space and includes our pal Rudbeckia Goldsturm (the Black-eyed Susan-looking coneflower), the purple coneflower, Agastache 'Blue Fortune' (tall blue in the back), Solidago 'Fireworks' (the goldenrod in the middle), Physostegia virginiana 'Crystal Peak White' (Obedient plant?), 'Autumn Fire' sedum and Liastris aspera (the purple Blazing Star in front?).  

The fun thing is that I have already have sedums and purpleish coneflowers and have been looking at the blazing star so this little pack was made for me!  It's called Summer Dreams.  I'm singing it to the tune of Summer Lovin.

Check out these other non-fug garden kits:

August Afternoon. Ugh I might like this look even better.  it feels very dramatic.

Jumbo Waterwise Garden.  Not my personal fave but still an attractive grouping.

Seems like a lot of these are great for dry areas in the West but I've grown many of these here so fellow Southerners can at least get some good ideas.  They have tons more pre-planned kits to buy but these were the only group shots they had.  

I hadn't planned to talk about gardens yet aGAIN (it's really all I think about in person right now) but here we are.  

Just consider this your friendly semi-annual reminder to embrace the fug.  LOVE the fug.

And love plants that are great for pollinators.